


Fossil Fuel

by martialartist816



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Comfort, Fluff, Happy Ending, Light Angst, M/M, Pillow Talk, SHEITH - Freeform, keith cries a few times, post-season 6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-24 11:16:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14953655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/martialartist816/pseuds/martialartist816
Summary: "I'm never giving up on you."In which Keith learns to let go a little.





	Fossil Fuel

**Author's Note:**

> Spoiler Warning for Season 6! Don't read this if you haven't seen it.
> 
> Set on Earth, post season 6.
> 
> On another note, I personally love how Keith acts like an older brother for Shiro even though it's more so the other way around. All he wants to do is repay Shiro for all the kindness he's shown him throughout his life. Shiro is so strong, and Keith wants to prove that he can be just as strong.

“I’m a bit of a fitful sleeper,” Shiro reminds him as they both slip under the thin sheet.

The bed is narrow, dictating them to lie close together. It’s perfect in Keith’s opinion.

They’re both shirtless to combat the desert heat that even the garrison air conditioning doesn’t completely quell. Keith’s bare calves, exposed from his loose basketball shorts, brush up against the soft fabric of Shiro’s sweatpants. Shiro is also wearing a large white gauze bandage on his shoulder from where three surgeons took eleven hours to remove every bit of Galra tech from his body.

“I already told you that I don’t care if you toss and turn a little.” Keith lay on his side, facing Shiro, facing his bandage.

“It’s more than tossing and turning most nights.” Shiro’s voice is quiet, familiar. He speaks to Keith softly, like it’s just the two of them in the whole universe. Nostalgic. “I have--”

“I know,” Keith interrupts so Shiro won’t have to finish. The nightmares. He remembers them from the beginning of their journey. The nightmares terrorized Shiro almost every night on the castle ship. On a few occasions, Shiro would leave his room and cross the hallway to Keith’s, gently waking him up because he needed someone level-headed to talk him down from reliving the trauma.

There were also a handful of times when Keith witnessed it firsthand. They’d be in Shiro’s room on the ship. Shiro would accidentally fall asleep on his bed while Keith sat quietly on the floor, reading a book about Altean language or Galran war techniques. Shiro would start shifting, sweating, and mumbling things about not wanting to be anyone’s champion anymore. Unable to bear hearing Shiro’s panicked fits, Keith would rise up to his knees next to the bed and hold Shiro’s human hand, stroking the hard wrinkles in his face until they smoothed over.

He hated seeing Shiro like that, but Keith felt better knowing that he could calm him down just as soon as the nightmares coiled dark clouds in his head.

“I don’t care,” Keith says again. His eyes travel down the profile of Shiro’s body, taking in the mountains and valleys of his throat, collarbone, and chest. Keith rests his hand over Shiro’s heart and locks his eyes onto the spot until the lids grow heavy. Lulled by the steady beat under his palm, Keith relaxes. If Shiro has another nightmare tonight, he’ll be right there to battle it until it’s nothing but a memory.

“You’re smiling.”

Keith opens his eyes, not having known when he closed them, to find Shiro watching his face with a tender expression.

“Because I’m happy.” Keith readjusts his arm to drape across Shiro’s waist. He pulls himself closer, wary of Shiro’s healing shoulder, and shuts his eyes again. “Go to sleep.”

Shiro’s arm comes to rest on Keith’s, and he does.

…

Keith jumps awake when he feels himself falling. His skin is clammy from sweat all over his body, and his heart pumps a release of adrenaline out to his fingers and toes. His stomach drops, and his cheek burns.

“Ngh!” His muscles are tense as he sits straight up. His fingers are on his cheek where the scar is still fresh and sore. For a second, his teeth feel much sharper than normal, but he runs his tongue over them a moment later and finds nothing out of the ordinary. A hand wraps around his bicep.

“You’re okay, Keith.” Shiro is right there, sitting up with him and holding him steady. “It was just a nightmare.”

Keith’s gentle panting eases until he’s breathing regularly again. He meets Shiro’s eyes in the dim light offered by the room and frowns. Shiro looks tired.

“I’m sorry for waking you.”

“I’m glad I was here.”

_That was supposed to be my line_ , Keith wants to say. This whole situation is backwards.

He sees Shiro’s gaze lower to where Keith is still touching his scar, and the hurt in Shiro’s eyes makes him drop his hand immediately.

“What time is it?” Keith asks.

No stranger to nightmares himself, Keith knows how much it sucks to wake up late in the night and have to lie in bed until the alarm clock summons him out of his room.

“It’s still early. You should try to get more sleep.”

“You shouldn’t worry so much about me.” _Not when I’m supposed to be worrying about you_.

“I’m never not going to worry about you,” Shiro says with a light laugh. His hand moves from Keith’s arm up to his good cheek, where he strokes with the backs of his knuckles.

Keith closes his eyes and lets out a sigh. He takes Shiro’s hand in both of his and moves it to his scar, pressing his palm firmly into his cheek. He leans into the touch, and Shiro’s thumb idly passes back and forth over the skin.

“Did you have a nightmare too?” Still holding Shiro’s palm, Keith turns his head and kisses the inside of his wrist. His smell is distinctly _Shiro_ , washing over him and warming him from his core outward.

“I think so,” Shiro says, and Keith is already kicking himself for failing at his only self-assigned duty for the evening. “But I don’t really remember it.”

“Good.”

With a gentle push, Keith guides Shiro onto his back and hovers over him, hair hanging in his face. Shiro looks up at him with his tired, soulful, affectionate brown eyes and smiles again. For a moment, Keith is just staring at him. The next, he’s kissing Shiro as deeply as his fatigued, frightened body will let him.

He stays propped up on one elbow above Shiro, and the fingers of his free hand trace down his jaw. Shiro’s hand is on his waist, a comforting warmth and weight on Keith’s skin. Keith moves his leg to interject between Shiro’s.

After an uncertain amount of minutes filled with unhurried kisses and happy murmurings, Keith pulls away for the last time and resumes his reclined position close to Shiro’s side.

They fall back asleep like that, legs still tangled together.

…

The hot sun beats down on Keith’s shoulders as he greases the pistons of his old, beloved hoverbike. He remembers too late to put on sunscreen, and he’ll no doubt have an awful tank-top tan by the end of the day. Just like old times.

Shiro is still on campus. Everyone is, besides Krolia. She came out to the old shack--her old shack--as often as possible, cleaning the place and gathering up any fond memories she could find.

She emerges from the front door, dirty towel draped around her neck, and nudges Keith’s leg with her foot. Keith turns around, breaking his focus on the engine. The bright sun briefly blinds him.

“Come take a break,” she says. It’s just like when they spent their two years together on the sentient planet, only better. This is their home. This is where their family began, and the mundanity of working on his bike and his mom bringing him an iced glass of water produces the most peaceful feeling within Keith that he’s ever experienced.

He smiles, stands, and brushes the grease off his palms. Krolia uses the towel to wipe dirt off of his forehead and the corner of his mouth.

“Go wash up,” she tells him. “I want to show you something.”

When Keith returns to their living room from the bathroom, Krolia is standing in front of the wall where Keith kept a shrine to his father. After his death, he tried to find anything left in the house that reminded him of his father. There weren’t many pictures. Keith lost his father when he was young, and the nearly-barren wall was a physical representation of the life that was cut far too short. And just like the wall, Keith was aware of the emptiness left inside of him too. Having his mother back filled that void like he never imagined possible.

Krolia pulls a small photograph from her pocket, crinkled and folded once down the middle, and shows it to Keith. It’s a picture of Krolia, sitting in the armchair in the corner of the room and cradling a swaddled infant Keith. She’s smiling at him. It must’ve been taken at sunset, because the light that falls on the two of them from the window is golden and saturated. It opens a well in Keith’s eyes.

“Your father kept this photo a secret from me until the day I left. I never even knew he had taken it. He told me that this picture showed him everything in the universe that he ever needed.” She pins it to the wall among the few pictures of his father and stands back to admire it. “I think he would be happy to know what this picture, as well as the two people in it, made it back home safely.”

Keith isn’t aware that he’s crying until he sniffles loudly. The pictures blur around the edges as his eyes continue to water. He turns away from the wall and hides his face in his mother, arms drawn tightly around her neck. Krolia hugs him back around the waist, raising a hand to smooth over the back of his head in a soothing rhythm.

“You used to cry in my arms all the time,” she whispers. “It’s okay, Keith.”

“He should be here to see it for himself,” he mumbles pathetically. “I couldn’t protect him.”

Keith isn’t talking about just his father anymore. Krolia seems to pick up on that.

“Oh, Keith,” she sighs into his hair. “It’s not your job to protect him. He wouldn’t want you to carry that kind of weight on your shoulders. He loves you for who you are, not for your desire to fix what you can’t control, no matter your pure intentions.”

Keith pulls back enough to wipe his face, and Krolia holds his shoulders steadily.

“It’s okay to show him your weaknesses,” she says with a firm gaze. “You don’t have to be the strong one all the time.”

His eyes drift over to the pictures on the wall.

“I understand.”

…

Shiro had a doctor’s appointment in the evening. Keith meets him in the mess hall for dinner when it’s over. It’s weird eating with him back at the garrison. Before, Shiro would always stay in the faculty lounge while Keith would have to eat with the rest of the students. After he got expelled, they would usually just hang out at Keith’s house instead of on campus.

Like many other things, it’s a welcome change.

“Plans tonight?” Keith asks, carrying both of their emptied trays to the collection corral.

“None at all, unfortunately.” When Keith raises a questioning eyebrow at him, Shiro adds, “The doctor forbids me from doing any exercise at all, and since I’m not a soldier anymore, I have no responsibilities to tend to.”

Neither did Keith. Coran and the Holts were busy preparing a new vessel with the help of garrison engineers. Shiro, Keith, Lance, and Hunk were technically no longer in active service and were instead staying on campus as guests of the military. Keith understood Shiro’s frustration at not having anything important to do.

“Wanna go see if our old hangout spot is still accessible?” Keith and Shiro exchange a smile, and then they’re briskly walking down the hall to find the nearest staircase.

The roof opens up to a beautiful, clear, cool night sky. Beyond the mountains, a pale glow of the long-set sun illuminates their peaks. The stars above seem so far away when Keith still remembers what it was like to glide in between them in endless space.

“Smaller than I remember,” Shiro says. He walks toward the edge of the roof, on the side of the building that faces the rising moon. He sits with his legs dangling, and Keith finds a place right next to him.

A breeze rushes against them, rustling the empty sleeve hanging off Shiro’s right shoulder. Keith’s lips tighten into a line.

“Has the doctor said anything else?” he asks.

“Nothing helpful so far,” Shiro says, eyes up at the sky. He’s leaning back on his hand to get the whole view. “He talks more to Allura than to me.”

“Allura?”

“They’re planning on making me a new prosthetic. One composed of Altean tech instead of Galran. It’s a good idea in my opinion. Quintessence is more organic. It might even help me bond better with my lion for when we, you know, eventually rejoin the fight.”

“But…” Keith urges, picking up on the hesitance in Shiro’s voice.

Shiro lets out a sigh. “But I’m not in a hurry. I told Allura to please take her time with it. She has used a lot of her power recently, and I don’t want her to push herself on my account.”

“It doesn’t sound like it’s just for Allura’s sake,” Keith says, leaning against Shiro’s good shoulder.

“It’s not,” Shiro admits. Keith knows the guilt Shiro is burdened with because of his last prosthetic. Its virus almost killed their friends on the castle ship. Its lethality almost sliced Keith to bits. His old prosthetic is the reason Keith has a scar to match Shiro’s own, which in itself is a reminder of more trauma that runs deep within him.

“Maybe… Maybe you shouldn’t.”

“Shouldn’t what?” Shiro asks. “Take a new prosthetic?”

“It would just be too much of a hassle, too dangerous.”

“I wouldn’t be able to pilot my lion without it.”

“You don’t need to be in a lion. We have five paladins.” Keith bends a knee, hugs it, and rests his head on his arms. His gaze moves away from Shiro, focusing on a dark point in the distance.

“I don’t think I’m following.” Keith can hear that Shiro is looking at him, but he doesn’t want to make eye contact in the moment. “Are you suggesting that I stay on Earth?”

Keith’s silence is enough of an answer for Shiro. His hand comes to sit on Keith’s shoulder, heavy and familiar.

“I can’t let you guys go back out there without me.” Shiro says it softly, but Keith can tell there’s no debate to be had. “I have to fight.”

“You don’t have to do anything,” Keith finally says. “You don’t have to do anything besides take care of yourself. That’s hard to do if you launch yourself into space to fight the same race of aliens that made you like this in the first place.”

“Keith.” Shiro’s arm wraps around him. “Why don’t you want me to go back?”

Keith hugs his knee tighter, fingers gripping the fabric of his pants. “You stand to lose a lot if they get you again.” A pause, then quietly, “I stand to lose a lot if they get you again.”

“It’s endearing that you’re so worried about me.” Shiro moves his hand to hook his fingers under Keith’s chin. Their eyes meet, and Keith is blown away by the warmth and fortitude in Shiro’s gaze. He sees galaxies in his eyes more infinite than the ones above them. “But you’re not the only one here who has someone they want to keep safe. I don’t want you to carry around all that weight on your shoulders.”

This is starting to sound familiar.

Keith doesn’t know what to say. It’s Shiro’s turn to kiss him, gentle and sure. Keith’s hand grasps onto the material over Shiro’s chest as he leans into the embrace. Shiro’s fingers are still under his chin, but they eventually slide into his hair. Keith angles his head, and Shiro hums so softly that it almost goes unnoticed.

Their kiss ends, but Shiro isn’t finished. He presses his mouth down a line from Keith’s lips to his jaw, his throat, then back up. Keith arches to give him more room, a sigh pulling from his lungs. Shiro noses his way behind Keith’s ear and breathes in.

“Let’s go to bed,” he rumbles.

Keith nods wordlessly, and they descend from the roof, barely unraveling from each other.

…

The pale floor feels cool against Keith’s bare feet. He sits on the edge of Shiro’s bed, elbows on his knees. Shiro is behind him, still asleep and unstirring for the time being. Keith rubs the inner corners of his eyes, frustrated with himself.

He had another nightmare, one that seized up his whole body and incapacitated him. He dreamed about Shiro, as most nights, another one where Shiro died because of Keith’s negligence. Keith knows it’s a dream, but it felt real in the moment. It felt like it could happen in some reality.

A warm hand slides up his bare back, replaced by a warm body. Shiro kisses the back of his neck.

“Tell me what happened?” he offers.

“I don’t want to. I can’t.”

“It’s okay. You know it wasn’t real.”

“It could be real. You know as well as I do that anything and everything is possible.”

“Was it about Voltron? About me?”

Keith rips himself out of Shiro’s embrace and stands from the bed. All traces of sleep leave Shiro’s eyes as he realizes Keith is more serious about it than he thought. Instead, he looks concerned.

“I hate these nightmares,” Keith blurts out, and he knows he won’t be able to stop now. “They’re just pointless fears. It’s like my head doesn’t want me to relax, doesn’t want me to feel safe. They’re distracting me. It’s ruining everything.”

“Distracting you from what?” Shiro pushes the cover off of himself, sitting up with his feet on the floor. Keith stands there, facing him.

“From helping you come back from your own nightmares! I know you have them almost every night. I hate seeing your face all twisted up in pain. I want to be able to chase it all away so you can have a goddamn good night’s sleep for once! I can’t do that if I’m also spending every night in cold sweat.”

He isn’t angry at Shiro, but it feels good to yell. Part of Keith’s brain is telling him that his is what his mother meant when she said it was okay to show weakness. He hopes Shiro knows that. From the way he stands from the bed and brushes his fingers tenderly down Keith’s scar, he thinks that’s the case.

“I know they’re just nightmares, Keith.” Shiro’s voice is all patience and love. “They interrupt my sleep sometimes, yes, but I know from the minute I wake up that I’m safe. Having you here with me every night helps in ways I can’t even begin to explain.”

Before Keith even knows the tears are falling, Shiro is swiping them away with the pad of his thumb. Keith feels ridiculous, but the tears come freely. Shiro unfailingly catches every single one and whispers reassuring nothings. His eyes are tired, his hair is all white, he’s missing an entire arm. It’s backwards. It’s all backwards.

“I failed,” Keith rasps. “I failed at protecting you.”

“You didn’t--”

“Look at your damn arm. The fact that it’s not there anymore is proof. You died a hundred deaths and you were dragged through hell because I couldn’t protect you.”

Shiro holds his face so Keith can’t look away, not from that magnetic pull of Shiro’s steady brown eyes.

“Keith, you’ve _saved_ me from a hundred deaths. I wouldn’t be here, living and breathing and back home, if it wasn’t for you.” He draws him in close, and Keith’s arms circle around his torso in a tight hug. “You’ve done more than enough.”

That seems to release Keith. He hiccups, his shoulders shaking, but he feels lighter. Shiro doesn’t loosen his embrace, turning his nose into Keith’s hair as he waits. Keith gives in until there’s nothing left to give, and when he finally pulls back, he’s more tired than he was when he went to sleep.

“I love you,” Shiro says against his forehead. “For your strengths,” against his cheek. “For your weaknesses,” against his scar. “For everything,” against his lips.

They help themselves back into bed. Keith curls against Shiro and lets out a long breath. When he falls asleep, Shiro is holding him, and if he falls, Shiro will still be there.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
